Over the last
decades, environmental issues have assumed a growing importance on political
agendas. Despite the public commitments made (laws, international
conventions, political statements) and the varied, ambitious and complex
management systems set up (institutions, planning procedures, financial
tools...), examples in all environmental areas (biodiversity, water
management, air and varied, pollution...) show that in many situations
processes causing serious environmental degradation are out of control.
Analysing and assessing the coherence and effectiveness of actions in the
light of environmental commitments must more than ever be a central issue
for environmental studies. However, developing new in depth analyses of such
issues requires an appropriate theoretical framework. This paper aims to
show that “Strategic Environmental Management Analysis” (SEMA), a
theoretical framework developed to this end over the last twenty years,
provides precisely the foundations needed. The paper summarises the
framework's background in the 1980s and its foundations in strategic
approaches of organizational sociology and strategic management. It shows
how the framework, when implemented using appropriate methodologies, can be
instrumental in overcoming widespread contradictions, confusions or
misconceptions in fields that are crucial for sustainable development and
environmental management. In the paper, the theoretical reframing promoted
by SEMA is applied in two fields taken as examples: integrated coastal
management, and environmental policy evaluation.

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